Secrets Maroma Beach Resort - Lynnea's Wedding Review- Feb 26, 2010

[Boo]

We havent hired a videographer (we may ultimately not have one) but from my research the video guys who can hook right into the sound system create the best audio.

 

Thanks Lynnea!

[blckrevpower]

thanks for sharing this!

i'm getting married at a secrets in Jamaica and this helps me a lot.

[Mrs.B]

Great review! Thanks for sharing.

[ReeRee]

Thanks Mlynnea for your detail review!! It is very helpful especially the welcome bag, the soundsystem for the ceremony and the meeting with Cecilia. I was able to visualize how the process will be once we get there for our wedding, so THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!

[orionandmari072510]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mlynnea Flowers I used the flowers included in the wedding package, and only purchased an additional bouquet for my Maid of Honor. Cecilia sent me photos of the different bouquet options for me to choose from, and I ended up asking her to combine a few elements from a couple different bouquets on the list. I ended up with an all white bouquet with White Roses, Hydrangea and Lisianthus. It turned out beautifully! I loved it! Cecilia delivered my flowers to my room at 1:30pm as I requested, to ensure that I had them in time for photos at 2pm. Also included in the package were 2 centerpieces; one for the Ceremony table and one for the Bride/Groom Reception table. Cecilia suggested matching these to the bridal bouquet, which I thought was a great idea, and they were beautiful. They were exactly the same, and I had her move the ceremony bouquet to the reception table after the ceremony. The Groom, Best Man, and Maid of Honor’s flowers were excellent as well. They made them exactly as I asked. Legal Ceremony We decided to have a legal ceremony. I requested the script from Cecilia so that we could plan our additions to it. What is written for the judge is very basic and would probably only last about 5 minutes. However, if you do the legal ceremony, there is quite a bit of document signing that takes place during the ceremony. If I would’ve known, I probably would’ve added another song to play during this time. The Groom and I had to sign AND thumb print on 5 documents. Our 4 witnesses also had to come up during the ceremony and sign 5 pages as well. Probably took about 5-7 minutes total. In addition to the standard legal ceremony text, we added on a Sand Ceremony and a reading. If anyone is interested in doing a Sand Ceremony, you can Google it and find tons of text on suggested things to say. I did that and combined a few different versions, and added some things to personalize to include my family and friends as well. After the ceremony, I scheduled it to allow for 1 hour of photos with the whole group prior to beginning the cocktail hour. (Ceremony over at 4:30, cocktails started at 5:30). Group photos only took about 30 minutes, so Dumas suggested that the groom and I take some additional photos around the resort, since the lighting was so amazing right before sunset. We left to take photos and asked everyone to meet us back at the beach at 5:30 for cocktail hour. Cocktail Hour We arrived at Cocktail Hour at 5:30pm. The Caribbean Trio (actually a quartet) was there waiting for us, and started playing as soon as we arrived. They were awesome!! I think if you select a different type of music like the Mexican Trio or something, you’d get the same band; they’d just play different music and have different instruments. They setup the cocktail hour next to the lifeguard stand and volleyball court right in the middle of the beach. It worked out great, and there was no one else around at that time, since the sun was going down, so it was quite private. The setup included 3 high top tables covered in white linens. Large Ivory colored Votive holders in the center of each table, tiki torches (which they couldn’t light because it was too windy), and some other post lights that had the cords buried under the sand. There were also a few normal chairs (about 4) placed nearby in case anyone wanted to sit down. I thought there would’ve been a bar where everyone would go up and order a drink, but instead they had 3-4 servers come out with trays of various cocktails, margaritas, and beer. It worked out great, and no one was ever left empty-handed. We did have a few guests make drink requests that they weren’t bringing out on the cocktail trays, and they were accommodated swiftly, so you’re obviously not limited to what they bring out. I’m sure you could even ask them ahead of time to make a “specialty†cocktail to bring out if you wanted. We selected the Mexican tapas for the appetizers and it was a combination of veggies, chicken, fish, chips/salsa/guac, etc. Everything was very good and there was never a shortage of food. The service was amazing and very prompt, and I was impressed at the number of servers we had for our small group. Reception After the Caribbean Trio was finished, we headed up to the main building for the reception. I chose to have my reception in the Marble Room located next to the ballroom. It was plenty big for our small group, and was protected from the elements. I was originally going to have the reception outdoors by the gazebo, but after having spent a few evenings there, decided that it was too chilly to keep it outside. I’m glad I did it that way, because it was especially windy on our wedding day too. The marble room was decorated beautifully. They had two large heart shaped candelabras on one end of the room, they had the speaker setup for the dinner and dancing music (we used iPod for this too), We put two large rectangular tables together so that our group of 13 could all sit together, and that was decorated with white linens, the same ivory candleholders as by the cocktail hour, our two flower centerpieces, and white chair covers. They had a table setup next to the candelabras with the wedding cake on it. (We didn’t do any extra decorations besides what included in the package, and I don’t regret that one bit. It wasn’t needed, and it was nice not to have to haul decorations to Mexico) Since our package photographer was only there for 1.5 hours, we did the cake cutting and first dances before sitting down for dinner. We selected the Tres Leche cake (which didn’t taste like Tres Leche I’ve had before, but it was still delicious). The cake is very simple, with white fondant and small white flower on top. I could’ve cared less what the cake looked like, so if you want anything special, you’ll have to upgrade. For dinner we selected the Secrets Salad, Tortilla Soup, Grouper with Poblano Chilly Sauce & Veggies, and Chocolate/Coconut Bread Pudding for our meal. Everything was delicious! Our package came with the Gold Menu items, but I actually “downgraded†with the Tortilla Soup from the Silver menu, because I didn’t like my other choices and wanted to keep the meal “Mexican†in nature. The Tortilla Soup was a hit!! So delicious, as was everything else! They also included small printed menus on each of my guest’s plates with what I had selected for dinner. That was a nice touch that I was surprised by. People may say that the serving sizes are small, but after all of the food and drinks at the cocktail hour, and with the 4 course meal, most people couldn’t finish what they were served. I promise your guests won’t go hungry for lack of food. One thing to remember (which I didn’t pay attention to on the contract), there are only 3 hours of service included for the reception. So, for us, our reception was from 6:30-9:30. If you wish to extend your reception to a later hour so that you can have more drinks and dancing, you have to pay an additional cost of $15.00 per person plus tax & gratuity for every additional hour. I was torn as to whether to extend our reception or not, because I thought 9:30 was an early ending to the party, but we decided it wasn’t worth the money and that if we wanted to keep going we could go to the lobby bar and/or disco. I’m glad we kept it to only 3 hours, because by 9:30 my groom and I were exhausted and everyone wasn’t as interested in dancing anymore… Overall, everything went very smoothly. I did have a list of things that I wanted to make sure Cecilia got done, but I'm not sure if she actually used it or not, but everything that I asked for was taken care of. I also had one of my guests assist with some of the ceremony stuff...making sure everything was setup correctly, etc, so I didn't have to deal with that at all. Cecilia Reyes (the wedding coordinator) was really nice and did a really good job with our wedding. I was honestly surprised at how easy everything was on our wedding day. It was very low stress and so beautiful. The staff and service were amazing and I would recommend this resort and this experience to everyone! I hope all of this helps. I probably went into more detail than necessary, but reading other people’s reviews really helped me in my planning, so I’m hoping this will help everyone else too. Feel free to post or message me with any questions, I’m happy to help. ~Lynnea

i LOVE the flowers and the cake! very nice!

[SonyaR]

Great review, congratulations to you and your DH.

[orionandmari072510]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mlynnea We paid $1600 for four hours. That was kinda the middle of the road package. There were cheaper packages with less time, and longer ones as well. I think we paid $200 additional for the DVD negatives. I don't regret one penny of that. Photography was really important to me, and I LOVE our photos! ~Lynnea

i completely agree with spending for a good photographer. My FI and i argued about it for a while. He wanted family to take photos but I pushed to get a photographer. We only get married once and I definitely want nice photos to show my kids and grandkids one day.

[ahollo02]

Your dress is gorgeous!!! Who is the designer

[knitgirl13]

The SMB menu sounds so delicious!

[mlynnea]

My dress is by Robert bullock of Birnbaum and Bullock. Thanks!!